Discuss - Ep #0470

Robservations #470

And if you'd care to look back, the first WP discussion topic for this ep:

Re: Discuss - Ep #0470

Vicki encounters Roger as Joshua under Ange’s portrait’s spell and she’s smart enough to figure out what’s going on. Unfortunately, she’s not smart enough to throw the portrait in the fire and be done with it, so Roger/Joshua removes the portrait from Collinwood. JClark talks to Vicki about Barn and their upcoming nuptials. She explains to JC that she can no longer marry Barn and must tell him so. Jeff asks her to wait to tell Barn until after Barn returns home and pretty much tells her that the hospital isn’t a safe place for her or Barn. JC won’t go into details but asks Vicki to trust him about his warnings to her about the hospital & Lang, revealing that he works for Lang (so, he knows what he is talking about). Vicki goes to the hospital anyway and tells Barn she cannot marry him and explains to him all that she remembers about her time in the past and what she reasons it all ultimately meant, and why it happened at all. Including saving Daniel & meeting Peter Bradford – and that JC is PB. Now, a pouting Barn wants to opt out of Lang’s care and cure. (I scratch my head over this.) Lang asks if JC is the problem and tells Barn that JC works for him and he can make Vicki available to Barn again. Barn warns Lang not to mess with Vicki. Barn meets JClark face to face in Lang's office then leaves. Lang looks at the arm on ice that Jeff has delivered. I think we've got our answer - Frankenstein storyline.

Afterthoughts: I loved Vicki’s explanation of why she went into the past and I am so glad I didn’t remember any of this because so much of what I was trying to figure out as I watched 1795 would have been known to me. That would have made it all the more boring at times. Barn should not be too shocked that Vicki no longer wants to marry him now that she is out from under his thrall. Barn’s an idiot, cutting off his nose to spite his face. Lang pulling the hero card on Barn is ludicrous. Lang/Powell likes to doublespeak names – this could be a great source of amusement or very distracting. Time will tell.

Elizabeth's awful yellow caftan has a "cousin" at Collinwood. Vicki is wearing a chiffon yellow caftan when she comes downstairs and tries to stop Roger from taking the portrait away to be reframed. And she's still wearing it when Jeff Clark comes to see her.

Another fabulous JF moment: Barnabas is in his private room at the hospital, with normal flesh-toned skin and no eye makeup. About to be discharged from the hospital, he has obviously just finished dressing. He is adjusting his jacket with an expression of wonder. We realize why when it becomes obvious that we're seeing his reflection from his point of view (one of my favorite shots!), because his hand reaches out to the mirror--from where we would be standing if we were him. But his happiness ends right there when Vicki arrives (wearing street clothes, thank goodness) and tells him that she can't marry him.

Later, Barnabas takes his troubles to Dr. Lang at his opulent home. While they're talking, Jeff blunders in with a large box under his arm. Despite the fact that Jeff pulled Barnabas out of the car wreck, apparently they have not officially met. Dr. Lang introduces Barnabas to his Hated Rival (they barely nod to each other), then hustles Barnabas out the door rather quickly. Barnabas is too distracted to notice how badly Lang wants to get rid of him.

And no wonder: Another good bit of anger and revulsion by RD as Lang praises the "perfect" arm Jeff has most unwillingly resurrected.

Vicki looks huge in it, DarkLady! lol, I thought it was a nightgown! So much color in '68. I am very much enjoying Frid's natural look also. And it's a refreshing change - it makes you feel good - well, it makes me feel good. Sometimes the subtle things make a huge difference. And I agree, I thought the mirror scene was very poignant.

I thought the severed arm looked pretty damn good (in VHS) for a DS prop of that nature. The show is getting gruesome.

I like it when the intro begins with thunder, before the music starts.  **  We get to see Mr. Frid's ears flex in disappointment, at Vicki's dump.   He has muscle control over his ears... an interesting talent, but inapplicable to anything useful I'd think...

I really like how they've created a feel of bright sunshine and wind outside Barnabas's hospital room.

"It's a perfect specimen!!"   Yes, pretty convincing.   The mirror scene was nice too.  [spoiler]I suppose now that the Frankenstein storyline has been revealed though, it's all downhill from here.   I wonder how I'd see all this if I'd NEVER ever heard of Frankenstein.   Well, they knew the whole audience knew Frankenstein, so it could never have worked.  Still, I'll try to revive my childhood early interest in the Adam story, when it looked as if they were being very creative by having the "monster" be intelligent and anxious to learn.[/spoiler]

With this bunch, you've got to wonder if the pre thunder intro is a blooper. I like the effect very much as well.

The DS Wiki site has some frame grabs that show just how voluminous Vicki's yellow robe/negligee/caftan is. There's also has a very nice frame of Vicki and Barnabas on the balcony at the hospital, apparently while she's telling him she can't marry him.

I don't know why Vickie doesn't think there is something sinister about the painting as she knows how Angelique was in 1795. Maybe she is under some spell about it also as she had to buy it. Roger's behavior and taking the painting should clue her in that something is amiss. The scene where Barnabas looks in the mirror was good. Vickie went to the past to save Daniel and meet Peter?  How clueless she has become. Even if they have changed the story of the family succession, Daniel still had to live for there be a family for her to meet in 1966.  At Dr. Lang's house Jeff brings in a severed arm on ice and it looks good on DVD.  Is the arm a snack for Lang? Is he a cannibal?  Why not snatch bodies from the morgue or funeral home before going to all the work of digging them up, but when you have a criminally insane murderer working for you and running around loose why take the easier solution.

Mmm mmm good, mmm mmm good... that's what severed arms are, mmm mmm good!   I agree, Lang probably snacks on arms while he gets his paperwork done at the hospital, maybe with a nice big tub of marinara dippin' sauce.

Vicki was under a spell, so her trepidations about the painting were suppressed long enough for her to buy it, much like with Sam's burning-Laura portrait.

She's all wet about her "purpose" in 1795.   I think Sarah sent her back out of a childlike, unthought-out feeling that if David's nice, smart governess could see how her wonderful brother got the way he is, a vampire that is, she could come back to 1967 after, and let everyone in 1967 know that (1) they need to protect themselves from Barnabas, and (2) they shouldn't be too harsh with him, and not destroy him.   Those seem to have been her two goals all along.  I also think Sarah had a vague childlike sense that Vicki, kind and wise teacher and grown-up, could set things right in some unknown way.   She's leaning on a respected grown-up to fix things, as children do.   This child just happened to be able to send people hurtling back through time and inadvertently get them hanged though....

As for cemetary-robbing as opposed to morgue-robbing, the former is done in the dark away from people where you're much less likely to be caught.

*falls down laughing*

Ahem! MT, I do like your thoughts about Sarah's reasons for sending Vicki back to "where it all began." It does all make sense if we look at it from her point of view. She really has done the very best she could, being only a little girl ghost with only a little girl's understanding of what happened. It's sort of touching to think of her watching over her big brother from-- well, somewhere in the great beyond, hoping that Barnabas will heed the rhyme that he taught her to write and somehow become good again.

Yes DL, there's something a bit heartbreaking about Sarah staying eternally innocent and childlike, holding onto that despite being trapped in an empty, dark afterlife, doing the best she can to set things right, functioning in this terrifying realm of limbo and death and the undead, while still holding onto that pure sense of what's right, that most of us grownups with more comfortable existences so often forget.   She may be the most important and meaningful character on DS.  I'd like very much to find out that she was an original DS creation.
(And thanks for LOLing DL!)

[Sarah] may be the most important and meaningful character on DS.  I'd like very much to find out that she was an original DS creation.

I agree, MT--I think Sarah is one of the best characters in the whole show. I can't think of any other characters like her in literature or the movies or whatever. But we know that DC ripped off many, many sources for the show's plots, so it might just be that no one has figured it out yet.

(And thanks for LOLing DL!)

Couldn't help myself--it really tickled my funny bone! 

I liked the "quietness" of this episode. Everyone seemed to be underplaying their roles for a change which was nice, especially AM in her scene with Barnabas and JF himself as he sat brooding on Dr. Lang's couch, looking terribly resigned and defeated, preferring to remain a vampire if that was what it would take to claim Vicki as his own.

Isn't it interesting how different people look in mirrors? The odd thing is that, except for in photos, we are the only people who routinely see ourselves "reversed" as it were from how others see us. Maybe that's why we often think pictures don't look much like us.

Doesn't Vicki ever tutor David anymore? When's the last time we saw her doing the job she was sent to Collinwood to do?